The Patriarchs Part 3

Rich endowments in the Spirit thus attach to their high personal dignity with G.o.d. As with the Church now. "Stewards" they were "of the mysteries of G.o.d." They could "sing of mercy and of judgment;" unto G.o.d and of His counsels they could sing. Profoundest secrets feed their souls. "The deep things of G.o.d," the things both of prophets and apostles, the things of the epistles and the apocalypse, are theirs. Paul was entrusted with the circ.u.mstances of the heavenly calling. He speaks of our being caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and of that great expectation as being our comfort and relief against the day of the Lord and its terrors; Enoch in himself, long before, ill.u.s.trated that very thing. John speaks of the raptured saints accompanying the Lord in the day of His power, joining in the breaking of the potter's vessel, and in the warfare of the Rider on the white horse; Enoch in his prophecy, long before, testified the same. Jude 14, 15. Prophets tell of the wilderness by-and-by rejoicing, and of the desert blossoming, of the blessed One renewing the face of the earth, and instead of the brier, the myrtle flourishing; but long before Lamech had told of this same comfort in the earth again, and this rest for man from the curse of the ground. Gen. v. 29.

Rich indeed were these endowments in the Holy Ghost. There is even peculiar vividness in these earliest utterances of the prophetic spirit.

There is commonly a haze over the distance. It is not clear, as if it were the foreground. Indistinctness invests it. And this, in contrast with the nearer landscape, only heightens the impression of the whole.

So the notices of the prophets, and the things reported by apostles.

They are delivered in different style. Properly so. The haze of distance commonly invests the communications we get of the future. Such is the perfectness of the way of the Spirit. The very drapery under which the distant or the future appears sets it off fitly. Clearness, or literal definiteness, would be offensive, as glare or nakedness. This is commonly so, and this is all admirable. But if _at times_ the distance is illuminated, we can delight in it; and in these earliest notices the latest scenes of divine action are thus set off in strange and beautiful distinctness.

Such was the heavenly calling, its virtues, its dignity, and its endowments, of this antediluvian family of G.o.d. The end of their path was heavenly also, as heavenly as any feature of it. I speak not of the _fact_ of its ending in heaven, but of the very _style_ in which it so ended. No sign among the nations gave notice of it. No times or seasons had to mark or measure it. No stated age or numbered years had to spend themselves. No voice of prophecy had so much as hinted the blessed, rapturous moment. "Enoch walked with G.o.d, and he was not, for G.o.d took him." Nothing peculiar ushered forth that glorious hour. No big expectations or strange events gave token of its coming. It was the natural heavenly close of an undeviating heavenly journey.

It was otherwise with Noah afterwards. Great preparation was made for his deliverance. Years also spent themselves--appointed years. But not so our heavenly patriarch. Noah was carried through the judgment; but Enoch, before it came, was borne to the place out of which it came.5

5 I am not careful to apply all this, as I believe it may be applied. I rather leave it in the way of a suggestion. But it does seem to me that the Lord, _speaking of the Jewish election_, takes Noah for His text or type (Matt. xxiv.); while the apostle, _addressing the Church_, takes his language the rather from the translation of Enoch. 1 Thess. iv. 17; 2 Thess. ii. 1. For the Jewish remnant, like Noah, will be carried through the judgment--the saints now gathering will be in the sphere out of which the judgment is to be poured. For we are taught again and again, as I have noticed before, that exercise of power in that day, in company with the Lord, is part of the glory of the saints.

See Col. iii. 4; Rev. ii. 26; xvii. 14; xix. 14.

And if the days and years did not measure it, nor signs announce it, did the world, I ask, witness it? Or was it, though so glorious and great, silent and secret?

The language of the apostle seems to give me my answer, and so does all the a.n.a.logy of Scripture. He "was not found, because G.o.d had translated him." This sounds as though man had been a stranger to that glorious hour. The world seems to have inquired and searched after him, like the sons of the prophets after Elijah; but in vain. 2 Kings ii. 17; Heb. xi.

5. And this tells us that the translation had been a secret to man; for they would not have searched, had they seen it.

All scriptural or divine a.n.a.logy answers me in like manner. Glory, in none of its forms or actions, is for the eye or ear of mere man.

Horses and chariots filled the mountain; but the prophet's servant had to get his eye opened ere he could see them. Daniel saw a glorious stranger, and heard his voice as the voice of a mult.i.tude; but the men who stood with him saw nothing--only a terror fell on them. The glory on "the holy hill" shone only in the sight of Peter, James, and John, though the brightness there at that moment (night as it was) might have lighted up all the land; for the divine face "did shine as the sun."

Many bodies of saints arose, attendants on the Lord's rising; but it was only to some in the holy city they showed themselves. The heaven was opened over the head of the martyr of Jesus, in the very midst of a mult.i.tude; but the glory was seen only by him. Paul went to Paradise, and Philip to Azotus; but no eye of man tracked either the flight or the journey. And beyond all, when Jesus rose, and that, too, from a tomb of hewn stone, and from amid a guard of wakeful soldiers, no ear or eye was in the secret. It was a lie, that the keepers of the stone slept; but it is a truth, that they saw no more of the resurrection than had they done so. Silence and secrecy thus mark all these glorious transactions.

Visions, audiences, resurrections, flights, ascensions, the glory down here, and the heaven opened up there, all these go on, and yet mere man is a stranger to all. And the translation of Enoch takes company with all these, I a.s.suredly judge; and so, I further judge, will another glorious hour soon to come, in which "they that are Christ's" are _all_ to be interested.

I have now reached and closed the fifth chapter. The first part of the Book of Genesis will be found to end here. For these chapters (i.-v.) const.i.tute a little volume.

I. This chapter opens the volume with the work of creation.

II. Creation being complete, the Lord, the Creator, takes His delight in it; and in the midst of it, and over it, places the man whom He had formed in His own image, with all endowments and possessions to make his condition perfect.

III. Man, thus made perfect, being tried and overcome, we see the _ruin_ which he wrought, and the _redemption_ which G.o.d provided.

IV. V. These chapters then show us one branch of this ruined, redeemed family choosing the ruins, and another branch of it delighting in the redemption.

This is simple, and yet perfect. The tale is told--a tale of other days; but in the results and sympathies of which we live at this hour.

It is the sight of the elect, believing, heavenly household, which we get in this little volume, which has at this time drawn my thoughts to it. They walked on earth as we should walk; but they were, by their faith, hope, and destiny, all the while, very near heaven, as we are.

Are we touching the skirts of such glory with unaffected hearts, beloved? Does anything more humble you in His presence, I ask you (for my own soul has already given its answer), than the conviction we have of the little estimation in which the heart holds His promised glory? It is terrible discovery to make of oneself. That we have but small delight in the provisions of His goodness, is more terrible than that we have no answer to the demands of His righteousness. And yet both stand in proof against us. After Israel had left Egypt, they were tested by the voice of the law; but the golden calf tells that they had no answer for it. In the progress of their journey, they are tested by the firstfruits of Canaan; but the desired captain tells that they had no relish for the feast. And what is the heart of man still? What was it in Christ's day?

The parable of the marriage of the king's son, like the captain of the wilderness, tells us that there is no relish there for the table which G.o.d spreads. What are singing men and singing women to a heavy ear? The pleasant land is despised still. Canaan is not worth the scaling of a single wall, or an encounter with one Amalekite. The farm, the merchandise, and the wife, are made the captain to take us back, in spite of the invitations of love and the treasures of glory.

Terrible discovery! And yet it is not hard to make it. The proof of it clings pretty close to us. We know how quickly present interests move us; how loss depresses and profit elates us; and then, again, we know how dull the glory glitters, if but a difficulty or a hazard lie this side of it.

Are we sorry because of this, beloved? Does it ever break the heart into sighs and groans before our G.o.d? Sad and solemn, if we feel it not thus--and terrible, when we deliberately talk to ourselves of making a captain again. And this we do when the pastime and the pleasures of the sons of men again give animation to our hearts, or when their honours or their pursuits become again our objects. Lot's wife, beloved, had got beyond Sodom, and that, too, in company with the elect, when it was found that she was still there, in such a sense as to perish with the city. Israel was as far as the wilderness of Paran, and that, too, in company with the ark of G.o.d, when it was proved that they were still amid the flesh-pots of Egypt. Serious remembrances for us all! holy warnings, that we wanton not with those l.u.s.ts and enjoyments, which once we watched and mortified.

"Of that day and hour knoweth no man"--are the solemn words by which the Lord refuses to pledge the moment of His return to His Jewish remnant.

Matt. xxiv. 36. That moment is to be to them as the thief of the night, or as the hour of the woman in travail. So as to death. If it come on any of us without a moment's warning, the Lord has not been untrue to any pledge He has given. And so as to the rapture. In no case is the day or the hour pledged or made known. All is included in _one_ word of deep and holy import--"Watch"--and that one word is addressed to all: "What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch."

Whether the close to us be by death or rapture--whether it be to Israel by being taken or left--the day and the hour remain alike untold; no pledge of it is promised at all. Each and all are set on the watch-tower. _We_ wait for "the Son from heaven;" _they_ will have to wait for "the days of the Son of man;" but neither of us know the hour that closes the waiting.

That is common to them and to us. We stand in equal condition with them as to this. But together with this there is a difference.

The Jewish Remnant are given signs. That is, they are told of certain things which _must_ precede "the days of the Son of man," though they are left ignorant of the day or the hour of that appearing. See Matt.

xxiv. 32-36. The saints now gathering to the hope of the "Son from heaven" are, on the contrary, not given any such signs, or told of any necessary precursory events.

The Lord communicated His _purpose_ of judgment to Noah, but said nothing to him of the _time_ of it. But Noah knew that it could not be till his ark was built. He knew not the time when the waters were to rise; but he knew they could not rise till he and his were lodged in safety. This was a sign, or an event necessarily forerunning the close of his history. And so with the earthly Israel. Circ.u.mstances must take place, though the day or the hour of it be not known, ere the Son of man can be here on earth again. But not so with Enoch. No circ.u.mstance necessarily delayed his translation. His walk with G.o.d was not a circ.u.mstance. And that was all that led the way to his ascension. And so with the Church now gathering. She waits for no circ.u.mstance--no years measure her sojourn here; no events prepare her heavenward way. She is not put, like the Jewish election, under the restraint of any signs or preceding circ.u.mstances.

The Lord treats it as _deceit_ to say "the time draweth nigh;" while the apostle _expressly puts us under those words_. Luke xxi. 8; James v. 8.

_After certain signs or events_, the Lord tells the remnant that their expectation is near; the apostle tells us that ours is _always so_.

Matt. xxiv. 33; Phil. iv. 5. The Lord exhorts the remnant to watch, because the day may otherwise overtake them; the apostle exhorts us to watch, because we are already of the day, and it is fit that we should act as day-men. Matt. xxiv. 43; 1 Thess. v. 5, 6.

Here lies a difference. But still, all are equally commanded to watch--we in this our day, as ever knowing that "the end of all things is at hand," and the remnant, in their coming day, even though they know that some events must go before.

And beautiful and just this is. For if the things threatened be profoundly solemn, as they are, and the things promised be unspeakably glorious, as they are, it is but little to require of us to _treat them as supreme_--and that, in other words, is _watching_.

And the sense of the nearness of the glory should be cherished by us. I mean its nearness in _place_ as well as time. And we need be at no effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us very clearly and surely. The congregation of Israel were set at the door of the tabernacle, and as soon as the appointed moment came the glory was before them. See Lev. viii. ix. So at the erection of the tabernacle, and so at the introduction of the ark into the temple. Ex. xl.; 2 Chron.

v. So when it had business to do (though of different characters) with the company on Mount Tabor, with the dying Stephen, or with Saul on the road to Damascus--wherever it may have to act, and whatever it may be called to do, to convict, to cheer, or to transfigure--to smite to the earth the persecutor, to give triumph to the martyr, or to conform an elect Vessel to itself, it can be present in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It is but a thin veil, which either hides it or distances it.

The path is short, and the journey rapidly accomplished. We should cherish the thought of this, beloved. It has its power as well as its consolation. And so ere long, when the time of 1 Cor. xv. 51 arrives, that moment of the general transfiguration, as soon as the voice of the archangel summons it, the glory will be here again, as in the twinkling of an eye, to do its business with us, and in the image of the heavenly to bear us up, like Enoch, to the heavenly country.

Then shall the Lord be glorified in His saints--not as now, in their obedience and service, their holiness and fruitfulness, but in their _personal_ beauty. Arrayed in white, and shining in our glories, we shall be the wondrous witness of what He has done for the sinner that trusts in Him. And as one much loved and honoured in the Lord has just written to me, so I write to you, beloved: "No lark ever sprang up on a dewy morning to sing its sweet song with such alacrity as you and I shall spring up to meet our Lord in the air." And his exhortation to me I would make mine to you (though feebly echoed from my heart): "Oh, my brother, set it before your mind's eye as a living reality, and then let hope patiently wait for the fulfilment!"

"Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

NOAH.

GENESIS VI.-XI.

How changed is the whole condition of things since the day of Genesis!

Were I to read the opening of this fine scripture, and just expose my heart to the simpler earliest impression of what I get there, it is this thought which would engage my mind; and yet with all ease we can account for this strange and wondrous revolution. In chapter i. G.o.d was alone, producing the fruit of His own handiwork, in wisdom, goodness, and skill; and then all was good and desirable. On the return of every evening and morning the divine delights lingered over what the divine hand was working out, and behold all was very good; and the seventh day was sanctified for the celebration of this rest and enjoyment. But now, it is not G.o.d's hand presenting a perfect work to G.o.d's thoughts and affections, but it is man, the apostate artificer, spreading out a wide scene of corruption and violence for the grief and repentings of the divine mind. The secret of the change lies there. Man has been at work; man has been fashioning and furnishing the scene, and not the living, blessed G.o.d. The earth is therefore filled with violence; giants there are, mighty men, men of renown; and the imaginations of that heart which was now making "this present evil world" are only evil, and that continually.

Here lies the secret. The change was complete because of the new potter that had been at the wheel; the change could not be less. The song of the morning stars, the shout of the sons of G.o.d, had no echo in the scene of creation now; man was now abroad--not as a part of the work, but as a reprobate workman.

It is just this which gives character to the opening of chapter vi. And there is no relief for all this in the creature--the best sample and portion it could offer is itself defiled. The sons of G.o.d themselves are dragged into the mire--their will, their desire, their taste, are supreme with them. The daughters of Moab have seduced to fornication; and the Nazarites, who were purer than snow and whiter than milk, whose polishing was of sapphire, are become blacker than a coal. The witness against them is, "he also is flesh."

If Adam was seduced by the subtilest of enemies, and followed the sight of his eye and the desire of his heart, the sons of G.o.d are now seduced by an enemy equally successful. He works, it is true, from within rather than without--"he also is flesh"--but the sight of the eye and the desire of the heart are again followed. Wives are taken of all "whom they choose;" other lords are listened to, for G.o.d is not in all their thoughts, and then it matters not whether it be the promise of the serpent, or the fairness of the daughters of men. Gen. iii. 4, 5.

The multiplying of men on the face of the earth is noticed as connected with all this corruption--just as in the history of the Church. Acts vi.

1. It was when the number of disciples was multiplied that murmurings and disputings began to arise; and these kindred cases in Genesis vi.

and Acts vi. tell us that man is never to be trusted, and that the more we get of him the worse things are. "Jesus did not commit Himself to them, for He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man."

Such was the condition of the scene from one end to the other; and against all this corruption and violence which now overspread the earth, the judgment of G.o.d is marked--"My spirit shall not _always_ strive with man." There may be, and there shall be, a term of long-suffering--as it is said, "his days shall be one hundred and twenty years"--but still judgment is marked, and the day of visitation will come--the Spirit will not _always_ strive.